Friday, December 27, 2013

Last week I spoke about my current project, a biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin.

Balian, the Baron (or Lord) of Ibelin, played an important role in the politics of the crusader kingdoms in Palestine throughout the reigns of Baldwin IV and Guy de Lusignan and during the Third Crusade. He is most famous for defending the city of Jerusalem against Salah ad-Din (Saladin) in 1187. He spent the bulk of his life in what is now Israel and southern Lebanon, but was then the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

If I am going to write about Balian -- as I am! -- I need to go to places were he was born, grew up, fought, and played a role in history. So next year, 2014, is the year of my pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

It is exciting to follow in the footsteps of other pilgrims -- and also be in the company of other pilgrims, because Ethiopia is a Christian country with a long tradition of ties to Jerusalem. Indeed, there were Ethiopian churches and an Ethiopian community in Jerusalem when Balian defended it. The fall of Jerusalem so distressed the Ethiopian king at that time, that he built a New Jerusalem here in Ethiopia, in a place now named for him: Lalibella. There churches were carved out of bedrock in amazing demonstration of technical know-how and the place is still quite magical. But it can't replace the historical Jerusalem, so nowadays Ethiopian Airlines offers daily flights to Tel Aviv to accommodate the Ethiopian pilgrims to Jerusalem.

I look forward to being among them -- and then following in Balian's (as well as Christ's!) footsteps as I visit the key sites. Wish me well!

Friday, December 20, 2013

The early months were focused on preparing my departure from Leipzig, completing projects and tasks I had set myself, winding down operations that could not be continued, preparing the way for my successor, and, of course, preparing for our move. Mentally and then physically dividing up our goods into those that should be stored in our house in Greece, and those that we would take with us to Ethiopia took a great deal of mental and emotional energy.

Then came the move in stages. The pack-out of our best things for transport to Greece, the pack-out of our things for Addis, the farewells and departure from friends and places in Germany. Training in Washington followed before the month of home leave in Maine.

But even in Maine it was a period of transition as I faced the sad fact Herbert and I were getting too old to manage the sailboat that has been so much a part of my life for almost 40 years. In addition to selling The Flying Dragon, we had to plan on making major renovations in our 200 year old farm house.

And then came Africa -- the long flight, the re-fuelling in Khartum and finally the arrival in Addis Ababa. Since then, every day has been a day of discovery in this land so rich in history and culture, yet growing and developing at a dramatic rate as well.

All of the above has left me less time for writing that I would like, and must admit that in the first half of the year the inspiration was missing as well. The Leonidas Trilogy had been such an important part of my life for so long that it left a vacuum in its wake.

I filled that vacuum by re-working older manuscripts that I had set aside more than a decade ago as "unpublishable." In the age of ebooks and KDP, where I can be my own publisher, however, I saw no reason not to release these books -- to the extent that they are good stories, simply not books with a huge potential market.

Herbert created for me the website: www.talesofchivlary.com to market the total of nine books set in the Age of Chivalry that I had written over the years. These are three Tales from the Languedoc (A Widow's Crusade, The Disinherited, and The Devils Knight - not yet released); The Templar Tales (St. Louis' Knight, The Templar of St. John, --neither of which have been released yet -- and The English Templar), and The Lion of Karpas Trilogy, a long ways from release, but one of my best novels.

Abruptly, sometime during the stay in Maine, I felt the stirrings of a new idea. Suddenly it wasn't nine "tales of chivalry" that I wanted to publish, but ten. The tenth tale is a biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin, the defender of Jerusalem against Saladin in 1187. He is a fascinating historical figure (and uncle of the hero of the Lion of Karpas Trilogy) and the more I learn about him the more excited I have become about this novel. Indeed, I can't remember being this inspired and absorbed by a novel since the early days of Leonidas. I've started a Facebook page dedicated to the book where I will be posting regular updates based on my research and about my progress, Balian d'Ibelin - Defender of Jerusalem , for any of you interested in following my work on this new biographical novel.

So as the year closes I have settled into a new, challenging job, in a fascinating new country and have an exciting new writing project to work on in 2014. That seems a good way to end the year!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and success, health and many good times with good friends in 2014.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” is a text-book example of
how it is possible to be authentic without being accurate. Scott’s film,
depicting the crusader kingdom during the last years of the reign of Baldwin IV
and the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1186, is far from accurate, yet it
succeeds brilliantly in evoking an age and a society. While it is possible to question if all his
changes to history were necessary, there is no question that on the whole his
film delivers historical insight to an often misunderstood age.

As a historian, I tend to be very fussy about getting the
facts right. In my own works of historical fiction I try to get all the known
facts scrupulously correct and take liberties only with the interpretation of
motives, mood, and non-historical supporting cast.Scott is much bolder – and yet he succeeds in
conveying the essential facts in a way that captures the imagination.

For example, the historical Balian d’Ibelin, who defended
and surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, was the legitimate son of
“Barisan” (sometimes also known as Balian the Elder), the Constable of Jaffa, and
not an illegitimate son of a childless man as in the film. Nevertheless, the
real Barisan was of “obscure” origins, and most probably a younger son of a
European noblemen, and Barisan was granted the lordship of Ibelin by the King
of Jerusalem.Thus, the character of Scott’s
“Godfrey” d’Ibelin reflects reality and articulates a key aspect of the
crusades and the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem: the ability of men of
(comparatively) obscure origins to become powerful and rich in Outremer.

Scott’s Sibylla is also more fiction than fact, and yet she
epitomizes the powerful – and colorful – role played by women in the Kingdom of
Jerusalem. They were at once pawns for forging alliances and gaining power, and
yet far from powerless, often decisive, notoriously outspoken and anything but
prudish. In fact, the real Princess Sibylla
probably had an affair with the real Balian d’Ibelin’s elder brother.More important, she forced her brother King
Baldwin IV to accept Guy de Lusignan as her second husband, despite the king’s
(very justified) objections about Lusignan’s suitability, by having an affair
with him.In effect, Scott condensed the
stories of several prominent women in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
into his fictional Sibylla, and film benefits from Balian being involved with
her.

On the other hand, the portrayal of Saladin in the film is,
as far as I know, on the whole accurate, as are the role of Reynald de
Chatillon, Guy de Lusignan, and the Templars in this period.The catastrophe at Hattin, including the
scene in Saladin’s tent following the battle and the siege and surrender of
Jerusalem, are all for the most part correct, aside from being slightly
condensed.In short, Scott has carefully
mixed fact with fiction to produce a great work of art.

Furthermore, with the resources at his disposal, Scott produced
images that are magnificent and powerful – truly worth a thousand words!Indeed, “Kingdom of Heaven” is in many ways
an excellent example of the advantages film has over the written word when
dealing with unfamiliar environments. It would take pages of meticulous
description (that no reader wants to wade through!) to describe the armor of a
late 12th century knight, or the decoration of a Saracen palace, or
the cramped and crowded streets of Jerusalem. In a film with a director of Scott’s quality,
who brings together the best costume artists and set designers, all those
details are simply spread out in color before the viewer’s eyes.With a single camera sweep, the landscape is
laid out in painstaking – and breathtaking – detail. It is when I see a film
like this that I wish my novels could be filmed!

Then again, the plot and characters would probably be
changed beyond recognition, and I’m not sure I’d want that! Instead, I’ll be
content if readers see Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” before reading my biographical
novel of Balian d’Ibelin so they have all those vivid images of the Holy Land
in their head when they start to read about a man whose real life was more interesting and real character more admirable than the hero of Scott's film.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Last week I described the 7th Crusade; this week I'd like to talk about two books that deal with it.

Chronicles of the Crusades by Jean de Joinville and Geoffroy de
Villehardouin

This is a rare book which offers us two contemporary accounts
of the crusades through the eyes of participants -- and not just monkish
chroniclers but fighting men.

Although the two accounts are by different authors (Geoffroy
de Villehardouin for the Fourth Crusade and Jean de Joinville for the Seventh),
they both offer stark, un-romanticized and often critical reports. These men are
describing military campaigns not creating works of art. They are
both soldiers and statesmen, intimates of the leaders of the respective
campaigns, offering an analysis of events rather than poets trying to inspire.
The clear, unembellished style is in part attributable to an outstanding modern
translation of the medieval French by M.R.B. Shaw, but the descriptions of
appalling conditions, fear, brutality, and betrayal are all the work of the
original authors.

To be sure, Joinville's stated intention is to pay tribute
to his beloved late King and to justify King Louis' reputation for saintliness.
Joinville's handling of Louis is, in this sense, unabashedly biased. But this
in no way detracts from the authenticity of his account of the Seventh Crusade.
On the contrary, Joinville's Louis can only shine if he shows how very dark the
surroundings were. I was particularly struck by Joinville's willingness to
admit and describe his own fears, uncertainties and mistakes.

These accounts are also invaluable to historians because the
narrators explain events in terms they consider self-evident -- but which are
often alien to us, reminding us of the great differences in social attitudes
between then and now.Thus, while human
emotions, motives and behavior is strikingly similar to today, other aspects of
society are strikingly different. Likewise, details like how horses were loaded
on ships or how provisions were pre-positioned and stored for the king of
France are described lucidly, providing the novelist and historian with invaluable details of medieval military operations.

I highly recommend these accounts -- just don't
expect them to be tales of brave knights and fair ladies. These are the
accounts of real men about real wars.

Everything is Light by Robert Shea

This is a surprisingly well written tale, with an excellent
portrayal of King Louis IX of France. Although the book starts with the fall of
the last Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1244, it provides a historically sound,
comprehensible and (again) un-romaticized introduction to the key issues involved in
the Albigensian crusades. It avoids the use of magic and mystery, far too common in modern writing about the Cathars, and instead presents complex, believable characters
deserving of sympathy but flawed and inconsistent -- as we all are. This is
without doubt the best book I have read on this fascinating episode in history.

Friday, November 29, 2013

There were to be four more crusades, but all of them were,
each in their own way, dismal failures, mere echoes of the First and Third
Crusades, and none could halt the inevitable end of the crusader kingdoms. Nevertheless,
the Seventh Crusade was notable for being led by a man who would later be
sainted, King Louis IX of France. I will deal with them all in this, my last
entry, on the history of the crusades.

The Fifth Crusade:
1218-1221

The fate of the children sent a new shock through the courts
of Europe, and a new attempt was made to rally political support for a military
campaign to rescue Jerusalem. Pope Innocent III called officially for a new
crusade in 1215, but the forces gathered were too weak for a direct assault.
The leaders, none of whom were prominent, chose instead to put pressure on the
Sultan of Egypt by laying siege to the Egyptian coastal city of Damietta.
Although Damietta fell to the crusaders in 1219, this minor victory had no
impact on the situation in the Holy Land. Two years later the crusaders
withdrew.

The Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229

The Sixth Crusade was led by Emperor Friedrich II of Germany, however, the Emperor’s motives were largely secular. He laid claim to the
title of King of Jerusalem by right of his wife, and wanted to establish his
control over the Kingdom (such as it was) and furthermore exert his claim to overlordship
of the Kingdom of Cyprus. He was, furthermore, under a ban of excommunication at
the time he undertook the crusade, which made it difficult for the Knights
Templar or the Knights Hospitaller to support him. In the end, he negotiated a
treaty that returned Jerusalem and Bethlehem to the Christians for 10 years,
but denied the Christians the right to fortify the city. This outraged the
local nobility and the militant orders, who recognized that the Saracens would
be able to retake Jerusalem at whim – and that they would be
expected to bleed and die in the attempt to save it long after Friedrich had departed for Germany.

The Seventh Crusade:
1248-1254

As had been foreseen, Jerusalem was soon seized and sacked by
Saracen forces (in 1244). That same year, King Louis IX of France was on his
deathbed in Paris. With his family and barons gathered around to hear his last
wishes, he had a vision of Jerusalem, and when he recovered seemingly
miraculously from his illness, he was convinced that God had restored his
health so that he could lead a new crusade to free Jerusalem. Not since the
Third Crusade had there been a ruling monarch who took the cross out of religious
fervor. Louis IX overcame the reluctance of his nobles and assembled a
considerable force, said to have numbered 2,000 knights. He sailed for Outremer
in 1248 from Aigues-Mortes in southern France, accompanied by his three younger
brothers – the Counts of Artois, Poitiers, and Anjou – and by his queen.

After staging in Cyprus over the winter, Louis’ army embarked
for Egypt and captured Damietta after a battle before the gates (but without a
siege) in June 1249. The crusaders collected their forces in Damietta, and then
in early 1250 started up the Nile with the objective of capturing Cairo. In
February 1250 their advance was halted by a large Muslim force holding the
fortified city of Mansourah. A rash attack by the vanguard, led by the Count of
Artois, resulted in heavy losses, including the Count of Artois and nearly all
the Knights Templar on the expedition. Meanwhile the Sultan’s forces had
succeeded in cutting off the crusaders’ supplies from Cyprus and the Holy Land,
and the French were soon suffering from hunger, dysentery, and scurvy.

In April, King Louis, along with all his surviving knights and men,
was taken captive. The wounded were slaughtered, as were most of the priests
and any of the captives considered too weak to make good slaves. The commoners
were given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. Only the wealthy knights
and noblemen were held for ransom.

Louis’ queen and consort, nine months pregnant and in
Damietta with only a weak guard, rejected the advice to flee for her safety,
wisely recognizing that Damietta was her husband’s most valuable bargaining
chip. Within only a few weeks, a deal had been struck, by which Damietta was
returned to the Sultan of Egypt in exchange for King Louis’ release, and a huge
ransom in gold was paid by the King of France for all the rest of the surviving
crusaders in Egyptian hands.

The Sultan with whom this deal was made, however, was
murdered before Louis’ eyes before the deal could be implemented. The murderers
of the Sultan were rebellious Mamlukes, technically slaves, who formed the
backbone of the Sultan’s military leadership and his bodyguard. The Mamlukes
cut the Sultan’s heart out of his chest in full view of the French king, then
came aboard King Louis’ galley and held it out to him, demanding to know what
he would give them for the heart of his “enemy.” Louis was (to his credit!) speechless.
The Mamlukes next threatened the Christians with execution, and most of them
confessed their sins to one another (because the priests had already been slaughtered
by their captors), and prepared to die. In the morning, however, the Mamlukes
consented to the agreed ransom. After Damietta was turned over and the first
installment of the ransom paid, King Louis, his surviving brothers, and the
most important noble captives – but not all the knights nor any of the
commoners – were released.

King Louis – against the advice of his nobles – remained in
the Holy Land for another four years, and engaged in sophisticated diplomatic
maneuvering with the Sultan of Damascus (a descendant of Saladin, appalled by
the Mamlukes’ murder of his cousin), the Mongols, and the Assassins. When his
mother, left in France as his regent, died in 1254, however, he returned to
France. By that time he had secured the release of at least 3,000 prisoners and
had signed treaties that stabilized the fragile status quo in the Christian
territories.

The Eighth Crusade:
1270

Although the Mongols captured Baghdad in 1258 and took Aleppo
and Damascus in 1260, by 1265 the new Sultan of Egypt, the Mamluke general
Baibars, had put them on the defensive, and he soon felt strong enough to focus
his attention on eliminating the remaining Christian strongholds in the Holy Land. In 1265 he
captured Caesarea and Arsuf. In 1266 he took Safed and Galilee. In 1268,
Baibars took Jaffa, Antioch, and Sidon.

King Louis IX, although now 66 years old and very ill, “took
the cross” again. He gathered an army and sailed for North Africa, where he
laid siege to Tunis, but his army was soon decimated by sickness and
demoralized by the death of King Louis himself on August 25, 1270. This was the
ignominious end of the last official crusade.

Edward of England in
the Holy Land: 1271-1272

Prince Edward of England, later Edward I, was in the Holy
Land in 1271-1272, but despite tactical successes he had insufficient military
strength to make a lasting impact on the imbalance of forces.

The End of Christian
Palestine

Baibars’ successor, Kala’un, another Mamluke emir who
murdered his way to power, was determined to eliminate the remaining Christian
strongholds on the coast. Breaking a truce he had made with the Christians, he
captured the Hospitaller fortress of Marquab in 1285. In 1289 he took the
Christian city of Tripoli, slaughtering all the males and flooding the slave
markets with the women and children. In 1291, the last Christian outpost, the
city of Acre, was besieged and captured. The military orders withdrew from
their remaining fortresses without a fight and re-established their
headquarters on Cyprus. The Christian kingdoms established in the Holy Land by
the First Crusade had been extinguished and there wound never again be an armed
pilgrimage by Christians to recapture the sites of Christ’s passion.

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Fourth Crusade had exposed the corruption of the ruling
elites, particularly the greed of the Italian city-states, and had patently
failed to achieve the objective of freeing Jerusalem. Yet religious fervor was
again on the rise. Genuine grass-roots passion for a new crusade took tragic
shape in a movement to free Jerusalem by love rather than force.

A French
shepherd boy, Stephan, claimed to have had a vision of Christ dressed as a
pilgrim. Almost simultaneously, in Germany, a 10-year-old boy, Nicolas, had a
similar vision. The concept of this crusade was that the sins of the earlier
crusaders – and the very fact that they sought to use force to achieve their
objective – made them unworthy of success. Only the innocent could free
Jerusalem – or so the leaders and adherents of this new crusade believed. They
expected Jesus to welcome them to his homeland and drive out the Saracen.

An estimated 20,000 children followed Nicolas’ call to free
Jerusalem. Allegedly entire villages were emptied of children, and many believe
that the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has its roots in this crusade.
Most of these children died crossing the Alps, and those who reached Rome were
freed from their crusading vow by the Pope.

Meanwhile, Stephan had led
his some ten thousand followers to Marseilles, only to discover that merchants
and ship owners had no intention of transporting his child crusaders to
Outremer free of charge. Eventually, however, some Genoese ship owners agreed
to provide passage to the children – and promptly sold them to Arab slave traders.

Friday, November 15, 2013

The achievements of the Third Crusade should never be
under-estimated. The disaster at Hattin had destroyed the native Christian
forces in the crusader kingdoms, and within months nothing was left of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem except the city of Tyre. Yet by the end of the Third Crusade,
the crusader kingdoms had been re-established, and indeed strengthened by the
establishment of a Latin Kingdom on the island of Cyprus that provided the
crusader kingdoms with a secure source of food and protection from Muslim
fleets.

Castle of Kantara -- just one of the great fortresses on the island

Nevertheless, Jerusalem had been lost, and this inevitably altered the
dynamics of crusading in the following century. Saladin had proved that the
Christian kingdoms were vulnerable, and this made it easier for subsequent
Muslim leaders to inspire to their followers with religious zeal. Meanwhile, in
the West, crusaders and crusading had lost the aura of invincibility. Men
increasingly doubted God’s Will when it came to the crusades. But the process
was slow. Five more crusades – or six depending on how one counts – occurred
before the last outpost of Outremer fell to the Saracens in 1291.

The first of these crusades was preached by Pope Innocent III
already in 1198. Enthusiasm for this crusade was notably diminished compared to
the three earlier ones. No king, nor any important nobleman, was prepared to
lead it, and financing was so short that when the crusaders reached the port of
embarkation, Venice, they were unable to pay for transport. The Venetians
offered to provide the shipping for “free” – in exchange for crusader help in eliminating
their (Christian) commercial rival, the city of Zara. Over the vehement protest
of many participants -- and the Pope! -- and after much soul-searching, the crusade’s commanders
agreed to do Venice’s dirty work, but they were no closer to Jerusalem.

At this juncture, a deposed Byzantine emperor sought the aid
of the crusaders, alleging that he would be welcomed with jubilation by the
people of Constantinople and offering huge rewards. The crusaders took
Constantinople, only to find that the people did not welcome the deposed
prince. A coup soon brought another emperor to power, one hostile to the
crusaders, and the troops were unpaid and in worse straights than ever. At this
juncture, Venice proposed taking the wealthy city of Constantinople on their
own account, and on April 13, 1204, the erstwhile crusaders captured and sacked
one of the greatest Christian city in the world.

Although this action was repudiated by the Pope and reviled
by many devout Christians throughout Western Europe, the damage had been done.
Although Western barons held control of Constantinople and much of what is modern
Greece for 60 years, all hope of unity between the Eastern and Western churches
was destroyed, and the strength of the Byzantine Empire as a bulwark against
Islam was broken.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem by Stanley Lane-Poole attracted my attention since I am working on a novel about his adversary at Jerusalem, Balian d'Ibelin.

Unfortunately, the book turned out to be a eulogy rather than a biography. Here's my review:

In his introduction to this book, Lane-Poole claims that “no
complete Life of the celebrated adversary of Richard Coeur de Lion” is
available in the English language. This may have been true when it was first published at the end of the 19th century, but it is no longer the case. Nevertheless, the price (just $.99 cents) seduced me. Before others make the same mistake, here's my assessment.

While understanding that every biographer is to some extent the
captive of his sources, this book is far more than biased: it singularly fails
to provide the analysis and context so vital to a good biography. Furthermore,
it is based on two false assumptions. First, that Muslims have the right to all
territory that was ever ruled by Muslims, and blindly denies both Jews and
Christians any right to the territories that was theirs long before the Muslim
invasion of the 7th Century AD. Second and more important, Lane-Poole
ignores the fact the population of these lands – even at the end of the 12
century – was not predominantly
Muslim, much less Sunni Muslim.The
population was completely fragmented into Jews, Greek Orthodox Christians,
Armenian Christians, Jacobites, Maronites, Coptic Christians, Nestorians and Shiia
Muslims as well as Sunni Muslims. The latter distinction is very important
because Shiite leaders, both the Fatimid Caliphate and the Assassins, made
repeated pacts and alliances with the Christians to fight the Sunnis – and Saladin
himself -- and the Shiite population in Palestine probably opposed Saladin at
least as much if not more than the Jews and some of the Christians. (For more information on the population of the
crusader kingdoms and their relations to their rulers I recommend either
Malcolm Barber’s book, “The Crusader States,” or to Professor Kenneth Harl’s
excellent series of lectures in The Great Courses series.)

Lane-Poole, however, is clearly not interested in the facts.Instead, he slavishly follows his pro-Saladin
sources without standing back to question or balance these sources with information
drawn from other chronicles and historians or – indeed – simple common sense. For example, he repeatedly mentions that
Christian clerics were prepared to absolve Christian leaders of oaths made to
non-Christians – but does not once mention that Muslim clerics told their
fighting men exactly the same thing only in reverse: that they need not keep
their word with non-Muslims.Likewise,
it gets very tedious to have every tactical defeat of a Christian force portrayed
as a “humiliating retreat” with the Christians departing “with their tails
between their legs” – in one case this was after just one week in the field! --
while every set back Saladin suffered (and he sometimes spent many months in
pointless sieges!) is explained away as a wise decision not to pursue a
time-consuming campaign or the need to let his troops go home to see their
families.Indeed, Lane-Poole mentions
several times how attached Muslims are to their wives and children, but does not
credit Christians with the same feelings. As for Saladin’s defeat at Mont Gisard, where Saladin’s
army of 20,000 was put to flight by roughly 500 knights led by a 16 year old
king suffering from leprosy, it is glossed over as “inexplicable” and takes up
less than two pages of the narrative. A real biographer would have been intent
on explaining both how it happened – and what Saladin learned from it; as a
historian, the latter point is particularly important as such a bitter defeat
(Saladin had to escape on a pack camel and lost almost his entire body guard)
surely left its scars on his psyche.

It is likewise the mark of a dilettante rather than a historian
to claim that Richard I “was honeymooning” on Cyprus, when in fact he was
conquering the island from a tyrant and by so doing secured the lines-of-communication
and a breadbasket for the crusader states for the next hundred years. Indeed,
the Latin Kingdom of Cyprus outlived the crusader kingdoms by more than 200
years.

The book is also littered with gratuitous and unfounded
insults as well. For example, Lane-Poole calls the sailors of the age “timid”
because they did not venture into the Mediterranean in winter. Apparently, Lane-Poole has never seen the fury
of Mediterranean winter storms much less considered what it would be like to
face them in a fragile wooden vessel without a weather channels, radar,
navigational equipment, radio communications etc. etc.

Lane-Poole’s bias is so extreme it is even applied to even little
things such as the way the “wooden [sic] bells of the Christians harshly
clashed [wood?] instead of the sweet and solemn chant of the muezzin.” (As
someone who hears the call to prayers five times a day, I beg to differ with that
utterly subjective statement!)

About four fifths of the way through the book, Lane-Poole
casts aside all pretense of being a historian and biographer and declares his
partisanship in the statement: “But the students of the Crusades do not need to
be told that in the struggle of civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real
chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the side of the Saracens.” (Chapter
XIX) Now, students of the crusade know just the opposite: that there were atrocities,
betrayals, cruelties, excesses and also magnanimity, generosity, courage and
gentle culture on BOTH sides.

The greatest weakness of this book is that by its excessive
bias it detracts from its hero.Saladin
deserves our respect because he was exceptional, not because he was perfect.
Saladin stands out as an impressive and attractive example of integrity,
tenacity, leadership, piety and generosity – particularly when compared to his
successors, such as Baibars. He was undoubtedly a more chivalrous figure than
Guy de Lusignan, and even Christians despised and repudiated butchers like
Ranaud de Chatillon. But Saladin deserves a real biography that attempts to
explain him as a statesmen and a military leader; this book is not it, but I'll keep looking.

Friday, November 1, 2013

After the "excursion" of the last six weeks to the Languedoc and the Albigesian Crusades, I'd like to return to my series of essays on the Crusades to the Holy Land. I left off on September 13 with a description of the Crusader Kingdoms.

Here the Crusader Castle of Kerak

The Second Crusade,1146 - 1148

﻿

﻿

﻿

The crusader kingdoms were a remarkable achievement that
astonished the contemporary world. But less than a half century after the
re-capture of Jerusalem by Christian forces, the new Christian kingdoms
suffered their first major set back. In 1144, the Principality of Edessa was
captured by Saracen forces. By 1146, the Principality of Antioch was also
threatened, and an appeal went out – not to the Byzantine Emperor, who was
deemed untrustworthy -- but to the West. The lords of "Outremer" expected more help from the kingdoms that had
taken Jerusalem in 1099 than the Greeks in large part because the ruling elite retained cultural,
linguistic and family ties with the West, particularly France.

This call for help elicited an enthusiastic response. This
time even kings were persuaded to take the cross (i.e., the crusader vow):
namely, the King of France, King Louis VII, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Konrad
III. Furthermore, Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most respected clerics of
the age and a gifted orator, preached passionately in favor of the new crusade.

Konrad raised about 80,000 troops and set out first, but his
army was so decimated by cavalry attacks, heat, and hunger after crossing into territory
held by the Seljuks that he returned with what remained of his army (approximately
7,000 men) to Nicaea to await the arrival of the French. Louis’ army (including
his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine) advanced slowly but with less significant
losses, reaching Jerusalem in the spring of 1148 with an estimated 50,000 men.

There the fateful decision was made to try to seize Damascus,
presumably to humiliate or weaken the enemy. Although a siege was established,
news that a strong relief army was on the way spread so much panic among the
crusaders that the crusading army disintegrated. This humiliating failure did
profound damage to the support for crusades in the West, because it
demonstrated that “God” was not inherently on the side of the crusaders and that
victory was not assured. It also restored the confidence of the Saracen leaders.

The Fall of Jerusalem: Crisis in Christian Palestine

Between 1167 and 1174, a charismatic and gifted Kurdish
general, Salah ad Din (Saladin), secured succession to the title of Sultan of
Egypt and defeated his rivals for the title of Sultan of Syria. With the united
forces of these two powerful states, Saladin attacked the Christian Kingdom of
Jerusalem in 1177 and tried to capture Jerusalem. Although Saladin was soundly defeated
before reaching Jerusalem by forces under King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who
forced Saladin to retreat, the Christian army was not strong enough to
pursue Saladin or deliver a decisive blow against the Kurdish leader. An uneasy truce ensued, while Saladin
turned his attention to his Muslim rivals, captured Aleppo, and moved his
capital to Damascus. In 1185, King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem died, and the throne
passed, after the death of his 8-year-old nephew a few months later, to his sister Sibylla and her
husband, Guy de Lusignan, a French noblemen.

The violation of a 4-year truce by Reynold of Chatillon, a
French adventurer who had married the widow of a powerful baron of Outremer, led to a full-scale war between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and
Saladin in 1187. Saladin invaded with the largest force he had ever assembled, and captured the city of Tiberias in just one hour. Guy de Lusignan called
up his entire feudal host – roughly 1,200 knights, 2,000 native riders, and
10,000 foot soldiers. This Christian host advanced to meet Saladin’s army, but due
to a series of tactical errors was decisively defeated at the Battle of Hattin
on July 4, 1187. King Guy and many other leading barons were taken prisoner,
and – more important psychologically – a relic believed to be the cross on
which Christ was crucified, the True Cross, fell into Muslim hands.

Saladin
then proceeded to capture one after another of the Christian cities and
fortresses, and took Jerusalem itself on October 2, 1187. Saladin – unlike the
crusaders of the First Crusade – spared the lives of the citizens (in exchange
for a ransom) and did not destroy the churches. Within days after he had taken
control of Jerusalem, it was safe for Christian pilgrims to return to the city.

The Third Crusade: 1189-1192

The loss of Jerusalem and the True Cross shocked the West.
Not only did the Pope call for a new crusade to recapture Jerusalem, but the
Holy Roman Emperor, Friedrich I (Barbarossa), King Philip II Augustus of
France, and King Henry II of England took crusading vows. Again, the Germans
campaigned independently. They rapidly crossed the Balkans and modern Turkey,
but Friedrich I drowned crossing a river and his army disintegrated. Meanwhile, Henry
II of England had died and been succeeded by his son, Richard I “the
Lionhearted.” Richard I was passionately committed to the crusade, and he and
King Philip II agreed to campaign jointly, making the radical – and hugely
expensive – decision to take their armies to the Holy Land by sea.

In 1190 Richard and Philip reached Sicily, expecting to join
forces there with troops supplied by Richard’s brother-in-law, the King of
Sicily. Unfortunately, William II of Sicily had died, but he had provided
financial support and more ships for the crusade in his testament. Meanwhile,
Richard’s and Philip’s armies and fleets collected in Sicily, where they
wintered – not without the usual conflicts and tensions between expeditionary
troops and local inhabitants. More ominous was the increasing hostility between
Richard and Philip. By the spring of 1191, the tension between the two
Christian monarchs was so intense that Philip sailed without Richard. When
Richard’s fleet put to sea, it was further delayed by storms, part of which was forced ashore on the Greek island of Cyprus. Richard captured this strategically significant base for crusader operations in just six weeks (I’ll
write more about this in a later entry), but it delayed his arrival in the Holy Land
until June.

At this point, King Guy (released by Saladin) and what forces
he could rally was laying siege to the city of Acre, held by Saracen forces. Just
a month after Richard’s arrival, on July 12, Acre capitulated to the
Christians, and Philip of France returned to the West, leaving Richard of
England in sole command of the Christian forces. Richard promptly moved out to
capture Jerusalem, taking control again of Haifa and Caesarea, and confronted
Saladin’s army at Arsuf. Richard defeated Saladin in the battle, but Saladin
was able to rapidly rally his forces, blocking the route to Jerusalem. Richard
therefore proceeded to retake Jaffa and Ascalon.

In 1192 Richard again gathered his forces for an assault on
Jerusalem, but as soon as his forces moved inland, Saladin seized Jaffa behind
Richard’s back. Richard returned and recaptured Jaffa, but had to face the fact
that he did not have sufficient force to hold the coastal cities and recapture Jerusalem.

On September 2,
1192, Richard signed a peace treaty with Saladin, one which left the coastal
cities in Christian hands and guaranteed Christians the right to pilgrimage in
Jerusalem and other holy cities (e.g., Nazareth) still in Muslim hands – for 5
years. Saladin died the following year.

Friday, October 25, 2013

On October 1, I released "The Disinherited," a novella set in the Languedoc during the Albigensian crusades. It is one of my ten Tales of Chivalry, and part of the sub-series "Tales from the Languedoc." It is, however, a stand-alone novel that can be read without reference to the other books in the series, although some characters overlap.Here is a fourth excerpt:

Lady Adèle’s screeching voice woke Julienne. From a
fitful sleep on her pallet, she roused herself in the pitch dark of the tower
room. “Julienne! Julienne!” the old woman screamed, as if she were being
assaulted.

Julienne
flung back her covers with a sigh and stood. “I’m coming, my lady.” The tiles
were cold under her bare feet. She looked for her slippers, but the old woman
was howling more furiously. “Julienne! Come this instant!”

Julienne
abandoned the search for her slippers and went to the high bedside. “My lady?”

“The
bedpan, you stupid girl! Why else should I wake you in the middle of the night?”

There was
no point remarking that she often woke Julienne because she wanted something
else: a potion to ease the pain in her crippled legs, or something to quench
her thirst, or even a snack. Re­signedly, Julienne took the bedpan from under
the bed and held it under the old woman. When she was finished, she emptied it
in the chamber pot, washed her hands in the bowl beside the garderobe, and then
returned to her thin pallet.

She
listened to the old woman snoring and felt the light of dawn crawl slowly up
the eastern sky. Another day was about to begin. It would soon be sixteen years
since she had come here. Sixteen years of sleeping on the floor of this woman’s
chamber. Sixteen years at her beck and call. Sixteen years of servitude …

Julienne
felt deadly tired. She wished she could go back to sleep, but no matter how she
tossed or turned, she found herself on edge and strangely nervous. The stale
air in the chamber oppressed her, and she decided that fresh air would do her
good. Stealthily she rose and dressed herself. She then took her cloak off a
hook on the wall and slipped her feet into soft leather shoes. Carefully she
pulled the door open and started down the spiral stairs, past the chamber where
their curious guest slept, and out onto the wall walk.

The sky
was now decidedly gray, even faintly pink in the east, and around her the
towers stood out in sharp silhouette. Then a part of the wall before her moved
and she gave a cry of alarm.

“Don’t
worry; I only rape women after noon.”

The hair
stood up on the back of her neck, and she turned to flee back into the hall.

“I’m
sorry.” His voice followed her, and she stopped and turned back.

“Why do
you say things like that?”

She could
see him shrug. “I only say out loud what people are thinking.”

“I was just
startled. I didn’t even know it was you.”

Gerard considered
her. Her hair had come half out of its braid and hung in soft loops beside her
face, with one wisp falling across her cheek. With surprise, he registered that
she was not so bad-looking after all. Yes, her nose was pointed and her lips
thin, but she had wide-set eyes under arching eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a
lofty forehead. “You too are from the Languedoc,” he said at last. “I hadn’t
expected that. I thought Thury would have his own people around him, but almost
everyone is from hereabouts, it seems.”

“I am
from the Minervois,” Julienne found herself saying. How long had it been since
she admitted that, remembered that?

She saw
his head jerk. “Were you at Minerve?”

She
swallowed. Oh, God, why had she started this? Her heart was beating against her
chest, and now she remembered she had had the nightmare again. That was why she
had slept so poorly. “Yes,” she managed.

“You were
there,” Gerard asked in horror, “during the siege? But you must have been a
child.”

“I was
nine.”

Gerard
cursed himself. How could he have mocked her with a threat of rape? “You weren’t―molested―surely
not even they―” He couldn’t finish. He knew it had happened. He knew it had
happened more than once. But Minerve had surrendered. Its citizens should have
been immune ….

Friday, October 18, 2013

On October 1, I released "The Disinherited," a novella set in the Languedoc during the Albigensian crusades. It is one of my ten Tales of Chivalry, and part of the sub-series "Tales from the Languedoc." It is, however, a stand-alone novel that can be read without reference to the other books in the series, although some characters overlap.Here is a third excerpt:

Lady Celiste directed her attention to Gerard with a
flush of eagerness, but her expectations for a dashing knight-errant were
instantly disappointed. Gerard was too old, too weathered, and too poor to
fulfill her fantasies. As quickly as her interest had flared, it fizzled out.
She politely held out her hand for Gerard to kiss and declared with pointed
distance, “We are very grateful for the service you rendered our beloved aunt.
You can be assured of our gratitude.”

Gerard’s
eyebrows twitched at the contrast between her youth and her tone. Had he been
younger, he might have thought her beauty entitled her to so much hauteur, or
he might not have noticed it at all in his infatuation. As it was, he found her
lofty arrogance a tarnish to her beauty.

Already
Lady Celiste had transferred her attention to Father Florio, who was watching
her with benignly critical eyes. “You must be Father Florio. In the last three
years Aunt Guilemette has not written a single letter in which she has not
praised you, Father. What a pleasure it is to welcome you at last under my
humble roof.”

The word “humble”
brought another raised eyebrow from Gerard, who at once glanced around the
room, taking in the luxurious furnishings, the hooded fireplace and ribbed
vaulting―all plastered and painted exquisitely. As he lowered his gaze his eyes
met those of the waiting woman, and he had the uncomfortable feeling she could
read his thoughts.

Lady
Celiste had taken Father Florio’s hand between her own, and then with an
elegant gesture of her left hand she indicated they should sit themselves in
the window seat. “Julienne!” she remem­bered to call over her shoulder to the
waiting woman. “See to Sir―” She could not remember his name. “The knight. He
can get something to eat in the kitchens and sleep in the squire’s chamber. My
husband isn’t due back for another fortnight. Tomorrow I can see about finding
him something suitable for his troubles.”

“My lady.”
Julienne dipped a courtesy to her mistress, and then with a forced smile
indicated the doorway to Gerard.

Gerard
did not respond at first. He had, despite his notably ignominious career,
rarely been treated so contemptuously. He noticed that Father Florio stiffened
and even Guilemette seemed on the brink of protesting, but Lady Celiste was
helping her up into the window seat and chattering about something. Father
Florio looked back at Gerard, and his expression was both apologetic and
promising. “I will speak to the Lady Celiste―” he started.

“Don’t
bother!” Gerard snapped, and he was gone.

He
clattered down the stairs without waiting for the waiting woman. He descended
past the audience chamber down to the ground floor. He strode across the armory,
on whose naked walls crossbows, lances, and halberds hung. He ignored the rows
of saddles, the shelves with helms, and the quarrels stacked in bundles, and
strode purposefully into the cellar under the hall. Here he found himself in a
barrel-vaulted chamber with unglazed tiles, and directly beside him was the
large, square cistern. Beyond the cistern was a smaller, narrower brick basin
built over a cavern in which a fire could be built, and then a drain led from
this basin into a pool. It was dry and empty at the moment, but the waiting
woman had managed to catch up with him at last, and Gerard announced to her,
pointing to the pool: “I want a hot bath. Can you see to that or shall I lay
the fire myself?”

“We will
get one of the scullery boys to heat the water for you,” she responded to his
apparent anger with stiff dignity.

“Good.”
He continued straight through the wine cellar, past the smoke and salt rooms,
into the pantry, and then into the kitchens. In pantry and kitchen, astonished
assistant cooks and scullery boys looked up and gaped at this strange knight who
had burst in among them. The main meal of the day was over. One boy was busy
separating the leftovers into basins (one for reuse, one for the poor, and one
for the dogs), while two others were busy washing the plates and cutlery from
the high table in a deep stone basin. A cook was gutting and decapitating pike,
apparently in preparation for some future meal, and an assistant was tossing
bones and other ingredients into a steaming pot over the fire, evidently a soup
of some sort.

Gerard’s
eyes professionally scanned the shelves and tables, locating a haunch of pork.
Pointing, he said to Julienne, “I’ll have some of that pork, fresh bread, and
some of your Abbey de Valmagne rosé―I saw some casks of it as I passed through.”

Then he
returned to the pantry as Julienne quietly gave the orders to make up a platter
of pork, bread―and the Valmagne―for the visitor. She also gave instruc­tions to
prepare a hot bath. When she caught up with the knight, she was appalled to
find he had paused at the foot of the stairway leading up to the hall overhead
and taken a goblet from the tray of washed objects waiting to be returned to
their shelf. It was a rare gold goblet inlaid with jewels, and he was turning
it around in his hand, studying it with an intensity that suggested he was
apprais­ing its worth.

The
suppressed amusement with which she had followed him up to now dissipated
instantly. In a sharp, piercing voice she called, “Put that back where you
found it, sir! You have been promised payment and need not sink to stealing.”

Gerard
swung around on her, all the pent-up anger of the last hour smoldering in his
face. “I don’t stoop to petty thievery. If I want something, I smash the place
down and take the lot!” With a flick of his wrist he sent the goblet hurling through
the air towards her. She gasped in surprise and flung out her hands to prevent
it from smashing to the flagstone floor.

“My God!”
she exclaimed as she caught the precious goblet. “Where did a barbarian like
you learn the langue d’oc so well?”

“Don’t
kid yourself that we’re any better than they are! If the Pope had offered us
all the lands we could grab north of the Loire, we’d have been just as eager
and just as thorough.”

He left
her gasping for an answer and started pounding up the spiral stairs. She had no
choice but to follow him, carefully replacing the goblet on the tray as she
passed.

Friday, October 11, 2013

On October 1, I released "The Disinherited," a novella set in the Languedoc during the Albigensian crusades. It is one of my ten Tales of Chivalry, and part of the sub-series "Tales from the Languedoc." It is, however, a stand-alone novel that can be read without reference to the other books in the series, although some characters overlap.Here is a second excerpt:

The monk
reemerged at the head of the stairs, accompanied by a bent old man leaning on
the arm of a gaunt Templar. The Templar was wearing a loose, white, Templar habit
belted with a red cord at the waist, rather than armor and surcoat, but there
could be no mistaking the soldier beneath the soft robes. Although he paced his
normally long strides to the shuffling of the invalid, his sharp eyes, which
had so often squinted against the sun that they seemed permanently puckered,
rushed ahead to the transept in anticipation.

Their eyes met, and Gerard felt his heart
leap. His blood flooded his veins with warmth. The flush that flooded his
brother’s face suggested that he, too, was not unmoved by this first meeting in
sixteen years.

Sixteen years, Gerard counted backwards,
wondering if he had aged in that time as much as Everard had. But he must have,
considering all that he had gone through. Absently he ran his hand through his
hair, remembering that it too was streaked with gray, just as his brother’s
once coal-black beard was now softened to salt-and-pepper.

He stood staring at his brother as he brought
their father carefully down the steep stairs, but he did not see him. Instead
he was remembering the young man of sixteen years ago. Then, Everard had been
lean but not gaunt, tanned but not leathery as now. He had worn the armor,
surcoat, and mantle of the Temple that day, his long-fingered hand resting on
the simple black belt that held the standard-issue Templar longsword. And they
had fought bitterly.

Gerard
could still remember vividly the insults and recriminations they had flung at one
another that day―insults that had festered and ached like dirty wounds long,
long after other, more recent wounds had healed and been forgotten. By
contrast, all his own words seemed to have glanced off Everard’s unshakable
faith and self-assurance like harmless, childish blows. That was the worst of
it, that Everard had been right. Why did he blame him for being right? What
weight did those hot, truthful words have against twenty years of sharing the
same bed, the same board, the same companions, adventures, and memories?Everard had reached the bottom of the stairs,
and Gerard could read his own thoughts in his brother’s eyes. Two more strides
and they could embrace again. But they had forgotten the old man.

The old man drew up abruptly, and the iron grip
on his younger son’s arm made the Templar halt with him. Everard had to break
eye contact with his brother and look questioningly at his father.

Father Theobald was bent nearly in two from
years of hunching over his books. He no longer needed to shave his tonsure,
because he had gone bald except for a fringe of thin, wispy white hair that
fell about his ears and on the back of his neck. He had the promi­nent,
beak-like nose that Everard had inherited, and thin, bloodless lips. His skin
was flecked with brown age marks and sagged in great sacks from his chin and on
his throat. But the eyes that squinted up at Gerard were sharp and black―like
Everard’s.

Though he
trembled with the effort, he raised his hand and pointed a finger at Gerard. “You
are my scourge and my damnation! You, with your Godlessness, wantonness, and
violence! For a lifetime you have been the instrument of God’s wrath―punishing
me for the sin in which you were sired! In the Name of His Great Mercy, can you
not cease?” The agony and the anger were so inter­twined, it was impossible to
separate them. Together they gave the old man’s voice both strength and pathos.
His cry flew up to the vaulted ceiling overhead and cascaded back upon them
with lingering reverberations.

Gerard stared at the bent old man, sensing his
brother’s embarrassment in his averted face. He had been told this was his
father, and the resemblance to Everard confirmed it, but what did his father
know of him? He had last seen him when he was just a few days old, a whimpering
infant on a borrowed breast. He had never been there when as a boy Gerard had
been lost, lonely, or confused. He had not watched him grow to manhood, had not
taught him his letters or his catechism―much less taught him to ride and hunt
and fight or presented him with the spurs of knighthood. His father had not
once―in all his forty-three years―even sent him a letter inquiring after his
health and well-being. Gerard knew that his lifestyle invited criticism, but
what right did this stranger have to voice it? “What do you know of me?” he demanded,
in a tone of voice that sounded both haughty and scornful.

“You think I do not know of your misdeeds?” the
old man retorted in an outraged croak. “There has not been a single year in
which I was not tormented by news of your misdeeds. First it was my own brother
who reported to me faithfully all your impudence and transgres­sions. After
that I had my network of informers―my fellow Cistercians, Dominic Guzman, as
long as he lived, and papal emissaries. You were my scourge, and I was
determined to use it regularly for the benefit of my soul. But there has to be
an end. I am dying.” His voice, which had started strong and accusatory, ended
as a whimper.

Gerard answered with a shrug that made his
brother wince. “You never tried to guide my life before; what right have you to
intervene now?”

Followers

Which of the below descriptions would be most likely to induce you to take a closer look at the book described?

A Heroic King

This, the third book in the Leonidas Trilogy, traces Leonidas rise to power as the Agiad king, and depicts his reign as well as the increasing conflict with Persia that culminates in the clash of arms and culture at Thermopylae.

A Peerless Peer

Book II in the Leonidas Trilogy describes Leonidas' years as an ordinary Sparta citizen, working his way up the ranks. It also introduces Gorgo and follows her development from girl, to maiden, to wife.

A Boy of the Agoge

The first book in the Leonidas Trilogy describes Leonidas' boyhood in the infamous Spartan public school, the agoge.

Where Eagles Never Flew: A Battle of Britain Novel

Radio communication and a highly specialized jargon makes the dialogue in this novel particularly critical.

Axel Frhr. von dem Bussche

One of several young officers prepared to sacrifice his own life in order to assassinate Hitler and put an end to his murderous regime. He makes a cameo appearance in "Hitler's Demons."

"B" Flight, 85 Squadron

When I came across this photo of "B" Flight, 85 Squadron, I recognized Robin, the RAF hero in "Where Eagles Never Flew" immediately.

JG 53 in the Summer of 1940

...one of the Luftwaffe fighter squadron, which fought in the Battle of Britain..

Christian and Deter

Likewise, this photo hit me like deja vu! This photo shows two Luftwaffe fighter pilots take a break during the Battle of Britain: for me they are Christian and Dieter from "Where Eagles Never Flew."

RAF Pilots

...at Readiness during the Battle of Britain.

FOREWORD INDIES AWARD FINALIST 2017

"Envoy of Jerusalem" is a finalist for the Foreword Indies Awards 2017 in the category Wartime and Military Fiction.

FOREWORD INDIES AWARD FINALIST 2017

"Envoy of Jerusalem" is a finalist for the Foreword Indies Awards 2017 in the category Wartime and Military Fiction.

The telling of good deeds is like alms and charity. It is never lost labour but always has its return.
Chandos' Herald, ca. 1385